1) "Come Play" -- not a bad horror movie but could have been better. I suppose the kids might find this scary. ** 1/2 out of **** stars.
2) "No Man's Land" -- Lost 80's crime drama gem. Lots of porsches and Charlie Sheen plays a criminal douche. Good movie. *** out of **** stars.
3) "Crimewave" -- This Sam Raimi film was pure wtf. Then again, what Sam Raimi movies aren't? Basically some rat exterminators are hired to "exterminate" someone and a poor sap is caught in the middle and takes the rap--and we go from there. Not bad. I probably would have watched this over and over as a kid had it been on HBO. ** 1/2 out of **** stars.
4) "Phoenix" -- Ray Liotta is a cop with a gambling problem, and like all gamblers, runs into debt problems. The thing is, if you steal from a criminal, is it really stealing? Or are you stealing what they stole? You're still stealing if you don't give it back to the original owner. Regardless, stuff spirals out of control, there's a few good lines of dialogue buried in here, but otherwise most of the lines and situations are filler. The writer tried hard, though. The problem here is this sort of film has to be weighed against Tarantino's best, and Tarantino knows how to write interesting characters, witty dialogue, and put them in disturbingly uncomfortable scenes. There's a hidden bonus in this movie, too: Giancarlo Esposito(of Breaking Bad fame) plays a pimp thug and has some of the absolute best lines in the entire picture. He plays the role brilliantly as he has done every other role. That was a nice surprise. Not a bad film but nothing special, either. ** 1/2 out of **** stars.
